Flashback!
by Carole C
Summary: Lightning strikes the Impala while the speedometer's approaching 90 mph. Suddenly, it's not Kansas any more. Or New Mexico. Or the 21st century, for that matter. A gen case fic (eventually) that's playful, edging into crack!fic. No spoilers unless you haven't watched American TV since 1969.
1. Chapter 1

Please Note:

This story is a continuation of _The Brady Crunch_, which explains why I recycled it here at the beginning. If you've already read _The Brady Crunch_, skip to Chapter 2 for new words!

I'll be leaving the original _The Brady Crunch_ up, however, so I don't erase the reviews that were so kindly left for it.

**_Chapter 1: The Brady Crunch_**

The Impala fishtails, its tires aquaplaning on the flooding desert asphalt.

"Uh… Dean… pull over," Sam urges, his hand tightening on the door's arm rest.

"Relax, Sammy. I can handle it. We just gotta outrun this sucker," Dean assures him. He's leaning forward, chest almost against the steering wheel. The windshield is almost opaque, the wipers struggling to keep up with the midnight downpour.

Lightning streaks all around them. A powerful blue bolt crackles down and smashes into that tempting chunk of black steel.

The noise is deafening. The light is blinding.

The night turns to noon and the desert into a suburban neighborhood.

They were still topping eighty miles an hour.

Sam registered two details of the scene as his vision clears: They blew past a sign warning '30 mph.' All the cars in the driveways were the age of the Impala.

A furry blur darted into the road.

Dean slammed the brakes before Sam could yell a warning.

SCREEEEEEECH!

Thumpthud.

"Awww, man!"

They got out and walked back several yards to where a big scruffy looking terrier mix lay sprawled in the street, tongue lolling, eyes glazing over.

Dean nudgedit with his foot. The dog didn't react.

"That dog is _dead_, dude," Sam groaned.

"Guess we oughta get it out of the road," Dean muttered. He grabbed fore-paws, Sam took the hinders.

Six kids burst out from the back yard of the house across the street. Three blonde girls, three dark haired boys. All yelling "Tiger! Tiger!" at the tops of their lungs.

Crisis-honed instinct kicked in. There was no need for words.

Sam and Dean dropped the dead dog onto the sidewalk and ran like hell back to the car.

They'd figure out where the the desert went later.

First priority was getting gone from 4222 Clinton Way.


	2. Chapter 2

"We're in California?" Sam frowned from the highway road sign back down to the map in his lap. "How are we in California when we were in New Mexico less than fifteen minutes ago?"

"My guess is the lightning." Dean eased the Impala down the street at well below the posted speed limit. "But I think we've got bigger problems than how the old girl hit warp speed. Anything out there lookin' real strange to you?"

Sam looked up and looked out, really looked, at the shopping center they were passing. "Noooo," he breathed, his eyes going wide. "You don't think?"

"Dude, there are way too many bellbottoms and big 'fros walking around out here for this to be some kind of stupid festival or something. And check out all the cars."

Sam collapsed back into his seat and threw the map onto the dash. "Oh great. Not again!"

"I hate the '70s," Dean agreed.

"Silver lining?" Sam said, still looking out the side window. "Gas is sixty-five cents a gallon."

"Yeah, like those new bills and state quarters in our pockets are gonna buy us much."

"Maybe we won't be here long enough to have to try and pass them off," Sam said.

"Your lips to God's ear, Sam. Or maybe Castiel's." Dean swung onto the interstate ramp heading east. At least at this time of the day, in nineteen-seventy-whenever, the traffic was reasonable.

"Maybe neither. I'm thinking this has Gabriel's sticky fingerprints all over it," Sam said.

"Then he's down to replaying his greatest hits, 'cause we've been back here twice already," Dean snapped. "That conniving little bastard! I'm gonna—"

"Do what?" Sam interrupted with a rueful laugh. "Every time we've tangled with him, we've gotten our asses handed to us on an ironic plate." Sam shook his head. "Better we just learn our lesson here and hope he doesn't decide it'll be fun to kill one of us."

"Again."

"For the hundred-twenty-third time," Sam agreed.

"I guess some jokes never get old," Dean said, "When you're a cosmic pinhead with the sense of humor of a kindergarten bully."

-o0o-

Metropolis had dwindled to city, then to town, then to wide spot in the road and was tapering down into desolate desert when they saw the school bus sitting by the side of the road. It was hard to miss it since it was painted in a patchwork of primary colors, blinding in the desert sun.

"Hippies?" Dean wondered, as they drew closer.

"No, I don't think so. Too geometric," Sam answered.

As they closed the distance, smoke started rising out from under the hood.

"Wow, sucks to be them," Dean commented.

Sam gave his arm a backhanded tap and pointed as they went by. Young faces were in the window. 'The Partridge Family' was lettered down the side.

The clincher, though was the sign painted on the rear. 'Careful. Nervous Mother Driving.' Actually, it was 'gnivirD rehtoM suovreN .luferaC' because Dean saw it in the rearview, but he got the message all the same. He groaned and made a U-turn.

By the time they pulled in behind the bus, it was disgorging kids like a circus car. Dean counted five, but he wasn't sure there weren't more to come.

A harried looking blonde woman wearing a paisley blouse stepped out behind them, and went to the front of the bus with her male clone who was either her son or a much younger brother.

Sam and Dean walked up just in time to see clone-boy open the hood, and both boy and woman recoiled from the burst of heat and smoke. Sam loped back to the Impala and got the fire extinguisher.

"Kids! Get back!" the woman yelled, shepherding her brood farther up the shoulder.

"Could it explode?" Clone-boy asked, eyes wide. Dean had to hand it to him though, the kid stuck with him and didn't run with Mommy and the rest.

"Nah, it's diesel. It might go up in flames like a mother, but it's not as volatile as gas," Dean informed him.

The boy blinked, startled apparently.

Sam showed up with the extinguisher then, and all threat of any sort conflagration was quickly neutralized.

"Oh my," the woman sighed, edging closer to peer into the blackened innards of their bus. "That doesn't look promising."

"Could be worse," Dean shrugged. "Looks like the wiring harness fritzed out. The short probably fried everything from the front to the back, though. It'll take a while to get that restored, but it doesn't look like there's serious mechanical damage."

She sighed again then gave Dean a hesitant smile. "You sound like you know your way around an engine."

"Well, diesels aren't exactly my thing, but I had to do something," he smiled at her. "Couldn't let you and your kids sit by the side of the road and broil."

Sam and the boy rolled their eyes at the same time, caught each other at it, and shared a grin behind Dean and the woman's backs.

The woman had a very pretty laugh that made her whole face light up. "If there's one thing I've learned the hard way, it's that somehow I can always take good care of myself and my family, Mr….?"

"Dean," he offered, along with his hand. "Winchester. And this is my brother Sam."

"I'm very pleased to meet you Dean, and Sam." The woman offered her hand to Sam as she continued. "I'm Shirley Partridge, and this is Keith, Laurie, Danny, Tracy and Chris."

Dean and Sam nodded and smiled to each child in turn. Keith shook their hands as well. Danny settled for nodding, arms across his chest. He met their eyes with a sly, challenging look that would be sure to get him into trouble when he hit his teens. Laurie smiled much brighter at Sam than at Dean, to Dean's silent glee, while Tracy and Chris seemed very shy for performers.

Introductions over, it was past time to get out of the sun. "I don't have a towing hitch on the car, but we'll be glad to give you a ride back into town," Dean offered.

"Oh, that would be wonderful. Thank you both," Shirley smiled.

"No problem," Sam assured her. "Excuse me, I need to make sure the back seat's not full of junk."

Or blood-stained, or littered with otherwise hard to explain detritus.

"Could we load some of our instruments into the trunk?" Keith asked. "I hate to leave them by the side of the road."

"Not sure we can fit a full drum set in there, but we can manage a few guitar cases," Dean agreed. "Unload what you need and we'll fit it all in."

Sam went to the trunk then to make sure the false bottom was in place and nothing personal was hanging out of a duffle, before five kids and their mother started cramming gear into it. He gave Dean a surreptitious nod as he closed it again. All clear.

-o0o-

"Thank heaven we allowed an extra day before our first performance," Shirley sighed from the back as Laurie slid into the center of the front seat and Sam closed the door.

Dean could feel the load on the car's suspension when he pulled back up onto the asphalt. Not only was the car crammed past its legal capacity with live cargo, there was an entire band's gear in the trunk and strapped on top, not to mention a few pieces of nicer luggage than the Impala had ever hauled in its Winchester era.

"Where are we headed?" he asked her, meeting her eyes in the rearview with a smile.

"Las Vegas," Laurie answered for her mother, with excitement and pride in her voice. "At Caesar's Palace!"

Sam whistled. "The big time, huh?"

"Well, maybe," Keith added from the back. "It's our first public performance."

"Ever," Danny put in.

"Wow, so, like, no pressure huh?" Dean commiserated.

"I'm sure you'll do great," Sam assured them on basis of nothing more substantial than common courtesy.

"Thanks!" Laurie beamed at him as if he'd handed her a gold record.

Dean noticed that Sam was putting as much distance between his legs and those mini-skirted, skinny little adolescent thighs as he could without climbing out the window. For once, the drive out to Vegas wasn't going to mean risking terminal boredom.

"If you can spare the time, we'd love for you to see the show," Shirley said. "We could have dinner together after, if you'd like. I feel we owe you something for going out of your way like this."

"Sounds like fun," Sam turned to smile at her directly. "But you don't owe us anything. We were headed to Vegas anyway." Or at least, in a desertly eastern direction.

"No trouble at all," Dean agreed. "And I know I'll enjoy the show."

There was no need to tell her that he was referring more to the entertainment value of the next 500 odd miles of Sam's discomfort than anticipation of whatever noises came out of their instruments.

-o0o-

Despite the fact there were five people under voting age in the car, silence fell after a couple of hundred miles.

Laurie was napping, her head on Sam's shoulder. Sam was slouched against the door panel, sleeping or giving a good facsimile of it. Shirley and Keith had a kid apiece lying across their laps and Danny hadn't looked up from his comic books for miles.

Dean reached for the tape deck to keep himself alert, but thought better of it. No telling what world-wide horrors he would invoke if he exposed this bubble-gum group to the best of 80s metal prematurely. He switched on the radio instead, and turned the volume low.

-o0o-

There was a hairy moment there when the stage lights went up and every single one of the kids froze, staring out at the audience like so many deer lit up by a semi on the highway. But Shirley got them rallied and they fired up their first song with great enthusiasm and practiced smiles.

After the first two songs, Dean turned towards Sam, eyes wide. Sam's expression showed the same sort of stunned discomfort.

Dean leaned in towards Sam's ear. "They're _awful!_"

Sam shook his head. "They're not. It's the 70s after all and they're just —" He stopped himself. "Ok, yeah. They're awful in any era."

"Want to bail?" Dean tried not to make it sound like he was begging.

"We can't. We promised them we'd go to dinner with them afterwards." Sam seemed more disheartened by that prospect than the torment of sitting through the rest of the family's performance.

Dean sighed for lost freedom and lost opportunity to watch Sam avoiding an innocently amorous teenager at a dinner table. "Ok, how about this? After their first set, we'll meet them backstage with big congratulations and bigger lies about how wonderful they are, we plead sudden pressing business then burn rubber out of Vegas."

"Sounds like a genius plan to me," Sam nodded. He gestured towards the waitress for another drink.

"Make 'em doubles," Dean told her.


	3. Chapter 3

**_Chapter 3: How Do _****You****_ Spell Revenge? M.I.L.F.O.M.G._**

"She's doing it again," Dean said.

"Doing what?" Sam shifted in his seat, again.

It was a sure bet that Sam's discomfort wasn't due to the thin padding on the chairs. Dean kept a straight face by battle-honed strength of will.

"Looking at you," he informed Sam. "Or should I say, gazing wistfully..."

"Dean, you've never used the word 'wistfully' in your life. And she is not."

"You don't believe me? Take a look."

"No." Sam's shoulders hunched, as if he was trying to duck for cover inside his own jacket.

"I don't think she's blinked in like, seven minutes."

"Shut up." Sam squirmed some more. "Where's the waitress?" he muttered, even though he had three-quarters of his drink left.

"Laurie's your type, you know."

From the look on Sam's face, his brother temporarily lost power of speech on that one. Very temporarily.

"What the hell makes you think that?"

Dean shrugged. "She's easy on the eyes. A little skinny maybe, but she'll..."

"But nothing." Sam scowled, which also gave him a good excuse to avoid Laurie's wistful gaze from onstage. "Dude, does the term 'jail-bait' mean anything to you? She's not a day over seventeen."

Sam dared one quick sidelong glance. "But hey, I'm not the only one being stared at. Tiger Mommy has definitely caught the scent of fresh meat."

Sam had to choose _that_ moment to look. Damn him.

"She's blonde," Sam wheedled, as if it sweetened the deal.

"And forty if she's a day."

"Hey, just means _she's_ legal, so go for it, man." Sam's smile was a wicked thing to behold. "She's even pretty."

"Yeah, pretty _old_...and she's got five...count 'em... _five_ kids."

"Who I doubt she adopted, so I'm drawing the obvious conclusion." Sam leaned back in his seat, relaxed for the first time that evening. "What happens in Vegas…."

Dean shuddered so hard his teeth chattered. "The only conclusion I'm drawing is 'Caution! Dangerous fertility ahead.'"

"That's true," Sam conceded, and looked towards the stage as the Partridges wound up their finale. "I wonder what cougars were called in the seventies."

"I couldn't care less, in any decade." Dean didn't dare look in even the general direction of the stage as the Partridges took their bows.

"Sure, whatever." Sam lowered the level in his glass. "I still think you should tap that."

"Are you blind-drunk already or did the waitress dope your drink?" Dean scowled at Sam and flicked a dismissive hand his way. "You think she's so hot, you go for it. God knows I won't stand in your way. In fact—"

"I think she just blinked," Sam interrupted.

"Huh?"

"Yep, someone's got a wistful gaze alright, but it's not focused on me."

Dean wiped a palm down his face. "I can't look. Please tell me Shirley's not coming over here."

"Have fun, bro." Sam rose. Quickly. "Don't rush, I won't wait up."

"Damn it, Sam!" he hissed to his rapidly retreating brother. "Don't you dare leave me- "

Sam pointed to something coming up behind him before flashing two thumbs up and a grin Dean wanted to put a fist into, just a little.

Dean risked a quick look back over his shoulder. "Oh, hi Shirley."

"Did you enjoy the show?" Her smile was brilliant as she sat down in Sam's abandoned chair.

"Wow, the show. It was…" Dean spread his hands and manufactured a big grin. "It was… wow... beyond words."

"What a wonderful compliment, Dean. Thank you! I'll be sure to tell the kids, they'll be thrilled."

She really was very pretty when she smiled. Dean pushed that thought far, far away into depths of the darkest part of his mind.

She slipped over from Sam's chair across the small table, to the chair beside him. Shirley leaned in a little closer. "I'd love to celebrate with you over dinner. I need to change out of this costume, but that will only take a few minutes. I can't begin to tell you what an incredible opportunity this is for my family. It'll make it all the more special to have someone to share the excitement with me."

It was clear to Dean that Shirley was floating on a cloud of parental pride and financial relief. It was also obvious a cloud was floating around her, some subtle perfume that smelled earthy and flowery all at the same time and sexy as hell...

Sam was racking up one hell of a payback for this.

"What..." Her knee brushed his thigh, jostling his train of thought on the tracks for a second or two. "What about the kids?"

"Oh, they're terribly excited too, but you know how teenagers are. They'd rather explore the city on their own than have yet another family dinner with Mom—even if it is after our first concert."

Shirley gave a careless wave of her hand, but Dean wondered if that didn't sting more than a little, all the same.

"Keith and Laurie are going out to see the sights, Danny's more interested in the water slide on the indoor pool and estimating our receipts than in anything outside the hotel."

She gave a fond little chuckle, "Chris and Tracy are awed by the idea of room service, and they were so keyed up before the show, I'm sure they'll fall asleep as soon as they have their pajamas on."

"So, you're on your own for a change, tonight," he said.

"Just for tonight," she agreed with a nod. "I love my children more than anything in the world, but still—sometimes a mother needs a little time to be a woman, too."

"I wouldn't know about that," he smiled. "But I can empathize at least."

"Ah, Dean, I'm sure you're capable of more than empathy, at least," she teased.

Ok, that was more than an accidental knee-brush under the tablecloth.

"Uh, Sam is..." He subtly eased away from her.

"Oh. Sam." So much disappointment in two small words. "He's invited too, of course."

"Thanks. And speak of the devil." Dean turned away from Shirley just enough to glare daggers at his traitorous brother, who appeared entirely unrepentant.

"Sam, I'm so glad you're back." Shirley gave no hint that she wasn't genuinely delighted by Sam's abrupt return. Got to hand it to the lady, she's a class act, off-stage at least. "I was just asking Dean if you both might like to go to dinner with me, to celebrate."

"That sounds fun, thank you," Sam lied with awesome veracity, "But, I'm afraid we can't. We have to leave, right away."

"Oh no! Not an emergency, I hope." Shirley rose as Dean stood.

"No, not an emergency, but urgent business," Sam answered. "I'm sorry, but it can't wait."

"Damn, this always happens," Dean added. "Maybe another time?"

"Any time at all," she nodded with a smile. "You're both always welcome to stop by."

"The next time we pass through, we'll look you up," Dean promised, hoping he would never get the chance to keep it.

"Tell the kids we said goodbye, and thanks for getting us in for your show. It was an unforgettable experience," Sam added.

"Amen to that," Dean seconded.

-o0o-

"You owe me big, ditching me like that," Dean groused as they walked through the parking garage.

"Yeah, a major debt's owed, but the other way around. I came in like the cavalry over the hill and rescued your floundering butt just in time."

"I wouldn't have needed the cavalry, General Custer, if you hadn't abandoned me in the first place."

"Did she write her number on your palm? Did she dot the 'i' with a little heart?" Sam looked entirely too pleased with himself. Gloating, even.

"Shut up." Dean got in and started the engine. He looked down at the dash from lifelong habit. "Let's hope we have some older bills on us, because we're gonna have to fill up soon."

"Boys, boys! Ask and ye shall receive."

Dean braked hard. Gabriel smirked at him via the rearview.

"I knew you're behind this!" Sam snarled.

He and Dean pivoted in their seats to confront the angel.

"Ask, huh?" Dean snapped. "Alright, I'm askin'. Put us back on that road in New Mexico, and make it the precise second when you jerked us out of the 21st century. No more games."

"And thus you shall receive, eventually. But for now..." Gabriel lifted his hand, fingers poised to snap.

Dean and Sam tensed. Dean squinted his eyes shut. He was pretty sure Sam did too.

_Snap!_


End file.
